This workshop will explore the topic of inclusive democracy through the lens of governmental transformation and structural racism. The discussion will examine intersections with other types of oppression, and highlight strategies necessary for synergy between governmental institutions and community-based organizations. Each of the sites will share a case study—a real life experience from the field—and will discuss questions such as: how can we focus and align collective strategies and measures so that we make real progress? What are the challenges of working “inside?” or “outside?” How can we grapple with the tensions that exist, while recognizing that there are deep inter-generational reasons for communities that lack trust in government? The workshop will include an interactive discussion on what is necessary to build commitments to achieve equity, and strengthen trusting relationships.

Beyond Bodies

For women and others existing in bodies considered to be non-normative, we inhabit a space that is circumscribed by precariousness and violence as a result of differences in gender, sexuality, and race. Given the pervasive discourse of colorblindness and the unease at confronting violence against gendered and sexualized minorities within and beyond the United States, this plenary seeks to engage gender, sexuality, and race as intersectional states of contestation and difference. How do bodies move throughout space? How are our bodies inscribed into systems of marginalization, as well as empowerment? What affective environments unconsciously yet tangibly affect our modes of existence, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual? This workshop seeks to engage how differently-situated bodies negotiate social and institutional space through established forms of recourse, such as politics and law, as well as through forms of cultural production, such as poetry, storytelling, social media, and more.

Disability Incarcerated

This workshop will recap, extend, and explore questions opened up by the recent “Disability Incarcerated” event on the UC Berkeley campus, a symposium and gathering that responded to the recent book of the same title. Together we will map some intersections of policing, imprisonment, and the disabled body. The workshop will aim, as performance collective Sins Invalid puts it, to “step into the conspicuous void within critiques of the ‘prison industrial complex,’ namely the absence of discussion of disability oppression.”

This workshop will examine and explore questions of how various groups are Othered or made vulnerable by environmental impacts. Vulnerability to climate change—including adaptability, response, access to food, and the built environment—and how marginalized populations globally are positioned relative to other environmental issues are the foci of this workshop. Globally, marginalized populations and geographies have disproportionately paid the heftiest tolls and endured the disastrous impacts of environmental degradation. For these population and geographies, climate change is real and existentially threatens their lives, national economies, access to food, and health due to hazardous exposure. How can climate justice challenge the very notion of structural racialization and barriers to democratic, fair and inclusive societies worldwide? This workshop will engage the possibility of imagining adaptability and reversibility solutions to mitigate dire current and future climate conditions, while challenging structural barriers that continue to inflict environmental disasters on marginalized and racialized population and geographies.

Promoting Inclusive Public Space

This workshop will look at the various ways in which physical public space is either circumscribed to marginalized populations or dominated by non-marginalized groups. The question of public space is not disuse, but the design and management of public space so that everyone feels “welcome”—to improve, rather than reduce social and cultural diversity. Too many marginalized people lack full and welcome access to public space, rendering the space non-public/non-private. We start from the assumption that building a more inclusive public space is a necessary step for dealing with a range of problems—not least of which is climate change, racial profiling and street harassment, but also the larger issue of protecting and building a robust public space for all people. This workshop would explore power dynamics in public spaces and advance a conversation on the built environment, and how to construct and maintain spaces where everyone feels welcome.

A dynamic new movement—the Black Lives Matter Movement—has emerged in recent months in response to multiple cases of police and vigilante murders of black men and women across the country. While it comes out of the struggle against murder and violence, the leaders of the movement are beginning to articulate an analysis and framework that ties violence against black youth to broader questions of systemic social exclusion of people of African descent. This workshop will explore the shared “othering” of black men and women in society as well as exclusion both within the black community and within the larger society that occurs across a spectrum of conditions and statuses—incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people; documented and undocumented immigrants; LGBTQ communities; disabled people; etc. It will also discuss the processes, organizations and movements that are promoting belonging and creating a space in the public discourse to expose the marginalization of black peoples, as well as to promote the changes in public policy necessary to advance an inclusive society. Framing questions: How is the notion of belonging being articulated and practiced? How has it impacted how the movement is being led and being received in black communities and by the larger society?

Sunday, April 2610:45 - Noon

A Deeper Sense of Collective Self: Religion, Faith, and Being

This workshop will explore the growing need to reinvigorate the role of religion and communities of faith, as both speak to deep moral and social issues around Othering and Belonging. Across the nation, there are many rich and deep faith traditions that have led discussions on social issues. Many of these groups and their leaders are seeking to reestablish a positive, influential role on social justice matters. This workshop will feature, bring into conversation, and create a space for people of faith to discuss the issues of Othering and Belonging. It will explore a couple of key themes: how do religious and faith-based communities bridge differences and promote inclusion, and how do their own traditions speak to this issue? How do communities of faith bridge the inter-faith divide, and creative progressive alliances that seek common aims inspired by their respective faith traditions? How can we explore the ontological questions and deep moral values that these traditions speak to in terms of the framework of Othering and Belonging?

Recent headlines have focused on the role of high-tech companies and technology in the changing dynamic of metropolitan areas, with a focus on the San Francisco Bay Area. This panel will explore what tech companies can do to play their part in diversity, inclusion, and economic opportunity for all. What are the barriers to entry and advancement? What programs are working that help to create better opportunity in high-tech? Because technology is also helping to fuel seismic changes in our workforce, the workshop will include discussion of the ways that technology itself can play a distinct part in Othering and Belonging.

Inclusive Public Finance

Austerity—reduced availability of luxuries and consumer goods brought about by government policy—is pervasive in communities across the country. A handful of the resulting problems include: transportation and utility infrastructures that are in need of repair and upgrading; the ostensible post-2008 housing recovery that has yet to be delivered to many neighborhoods; public employee pensions and other benefits that have been curtailed; charter schools that opened in response to underfunded and struggling public schools; public health systems that fail to provide critical services; high unemployment among marginalized groups; and emergency responders that fail to adequately protect our communities. This is not a fragmented landscape of crises in the separate spheres of transportation, environment, housing, employment, or education—these are symptoms of a pervasive economic crisis. While the economy presents itself as a wealth generator for some groups, it manifests as a financial crisis for others. In this workshop, we develop a rationale to put the economy on the agenda for change and equity. When we say the problem is economic, what does that mean and how does it help us identify a target for change? When we say the economy prohibits inclusion, how does this happen? What should putting the economy on the change agenda for promoting equity look like?

This workshop will explore the contours of a shared Othering process among documented and undocumented immigrants and incarcerated and formerly incarcerated persons. Panelists will lead a shared analysis and dialogue of the role of race and dehumanization within immigration control and mass incarceration. The discussion will examine how both these systems produce marginality and exclusion from public and private spaces, and will identify the range of inter-related interventions that could promote inclusion for both populations simultaneously. In particular, this interactive panel is an exploration of how the immigration enforcement system has come to resemble traditional law enforcement. The implications for both resistance and compliance among local and state entities may frame: response models for the drug war; efforts to extend basic democratic norms to those touched by the immigration and incarceration systems; efforts to extend and expand service provision (health care, education, employment skills, housing, etc.) to these populations.